“What is happening, sir?” Karun asked, his voice hushed as he looked around the room.

  “That’s a really good question, Karun,” Kingo responded, pushing down a spike of frustrated anger toward Druig. He spread his hands out to either side as he turned back toward the other Eternals. “Druig? Sersi? Anyone want to explain?”

  Druig—the new Prime Eternal—was standing near the viewing window at the back of the chamber, his hands tucked behind his back as he looked out at the smooth, blue and green arc of the planet against the black backdrop of space, Makkari at his side. At his command, the Domo had reengaged its cloak and returned to low Earth orbit. The mind controller had also marched Karun into the room a moment later, though he’d relinquished his control of the man before Kingo had had a chance to protest directly.

  “I’m sorry,” Sersi volunteered, looking between Kingo and Karun. “We thought it was too risky to try to bring you in on this. I did try to talk to you, but—”

  “Woah, woah, woah, getting ahead of yourself there.” Kingo held up a hand. “I’m still sort of stuck on the first part of the whole ‘all of you were planning on betraying Ajak and did betray Ikaris’ thing.” He glanced to the side at where the two restrained Eternals lay in dreamless slumber. After Sprite had vanished, Phastos had reinforced their bindings, layering coffin-like compartments around them to avoid any chance that they might be interfered with.

  “To be fair,” Druig said as he turned back to face Kingo. “They did try to erase my memories.” Next to him, Makkari held up a hand. He reached for it, their fingers brushing against each other’s briefly as smiles played across their lips.

  “It didn’t work? How?”

  “Do you remember that moment, after Ikaris frogmarched me in here, just before Ajak started off the process? Where you all gave me a little send-off, like I was dying?”

  Kingo grimaced. Ajak had assured them that Druig would still be himself afterwards, but it had still felt a little bit like a funeral. They hadn’t been saying goodbye to him, exactly, but a few of the others had taken a moment with Druig as he was before Ajak triggered the Domo’s processes.

  “It was Sersi,” Druig said. “She opened her mind to me.”

  Sersi rubbed at her arm absently. “I wasn’t trying anything specific. There was no plan. I knew there was nothing I could do. But I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, either. So I let Druig in. I just… I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.”

  Druig let out a small snort of amusement. “I was angry. Bitter. Resigned. I almost seized control. Lashed out. Maybe I’d have made her destroy the Domo entirely. But it never would have stopped Ikaris. I’d have thrown a petulant fit, then died anyway,” he said. “Sersi made an utterly useless, futile gesture of defiance that meant nothing. Should have meant nothing. Even so… that mad, desperate desire to do something, even in the face of that futility—the idea that it was worth trying, even if you knew it wouldn’t work? That… it sparked something in me. A stubbornness, I suppose. I couldn’t beat Ikaris in a fight, but that didn’t mean I had to let him and Ajak win without one.”

  “But how?” Kingo asked insistently. “Ajak erased your memories. We all saw her do it.”

  “The way my power binds a person’s consciousness is, I think, superficially similar to the way that Arishem binds memories,” Druig explained. “I had no idea if it would do anything, but that didn’t stop Sersi from trying, so I didn’t let it stop me, either. I used my power on myself. Locked myself away. And when the Domo’s automated processes went to erase my memories, the effect passed right over me.”

  Kingo furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of it. “You’re saying it was like…” he said slowly. “Like in a cartoon, where the good guy is in a room full of mannequins, so he pretends to be a mannequin, and the bad guy doesn’t see them?”

  Druig let out a small laugh. “I suppose so? Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are. But somehow, I managed to slip through anyway. Memories intact.”

  Phastos was standing off to one side, the holographic map of the globe once again hovering over his hand with golden marks picking out the ship in orbit and a location in Asia. He looked up from what he was doing, a flicker of something unidentifiable passing across his face before he spoke. “If I had to guess, I’d say that the Domo’s automated processes are a limited, less-complex version of the World Forge’s system, intended only for short-term use and field repair.”

  “I doubt I’d have been able to fool Arishem directly,” Druig agreed with a nod. “But here? Turns out it was enough. I spoke to Sersi afterwards, as soon as I was able. We brought in Makkari, then Sersi spoke to Phastos about the plan.”

  “What plan?” Kingo asked. “Are you going to try to stop the Emergence?”

  Druig cocked his head to the side. “Would you try to stop us if I said yes?”

  There was a heavy silence for a moment, then Kingo shook his head. “No,” he said simply. “I still have faith in Arishem. But I’m not going to fight you. There’s been too much fighting with each other already. I won’t hurt any of you for my beliefs.” He looked down at the floor, then nodded to himself and glanced toward his valet. “Just… drop me and Karun off. We’ll go home.”

  “You could stay,” Sersi said.

  Stay, Makkari signed. Please. We never should have split up. It’s better if we’re together.

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to try to stop you, but I can’t help you, either. I still think Ikaris is right.”

  “I didn’t actually say that we were going to stop the Emergence,” Druig pointed out. “You said to Sersi that you’d listen to her if she had a plan that would work. Something that would avoid hurting Tiamut and save humanity at the same time.”

  Kingo paused. “What are you going to do?”

  Druig stepped away from the window, crossing the short space between them to stand in front of Kingo. “When I left, five hundred years ago, I thought about taking over the minds of every human on this planet. Just… putting a stop to all of the suffering I’d seen. Violence, fear, greed, all gone. But I didn’t. Because without their flaws, they wouldn’t be human.”

  Realisation dawned. “But that doesn’t mean anything if they’re all dead.”

  “Now that I’m Prime Eternal, I can sense how close Tiamut is to Emergence,” Druig explained. “We’ve got a few years to work through construction and logistics, but the only possible way to get humanity to work together to save themselves is if I make them.”

  Kingo let out a small huff of disbelief, glancing toward Sersi. “And you’re okay with this?”

  She looked a little unsure, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Maybe we won’t have to, now? Ajak was wavering… maybe she was right. Maybe the Avengers’ plan will work?”

  “The Avengers don’t have a plan, Sersi. They sent Thor to beg. Arishem and the Celestials have destroyed countless worlds over billions of years. Why would they stop at Earth?” Druig retorted. “It was never going to work.”

  “So your plan is to take over humanity, force them to evacuate?” Kingo asked.

  “We still need to work out the finer details. We don’t have a destination yet, obviously. If we had a spare decade, Phastos tells me that terraforming Mars could be viable, but we don't have that long. There are nearly seven and a half billion people on Earth. We’re going to need a fleet of ships, and they might have to keep going for a while, so they need to be sustainable. The scale of the logistics here is off the charts. Luckily,” he said with a flick of his fingers. “We have a Phastos.”

  “What about Arishem?”

  Druig tapped the centre of his chest with a finger, where the Prime Eternal’s sphere had entered his body. “Phastos tinkered with this, made it so that we can vet any signals it sends if Arishem decides to check in. But he’s not omniscient, and with the scale he works on, he shouldn’t notice anything’s amiss until we’re already long gone.”

  “And the Emergence? You said you didn’t want to hurt Tiamut, but if humanity goes away, so does the energy he needs. Won’t that starve him?”

  “Maybe we’ll leave a few behind,” Druig said with a small shrug.

  “Druig.” Sersi’s head snapped around to face him, her expression suddenly hard.

  The mind controller held up both hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “It was just a thought! We’d obviously talk any actual decisions through, but do you really think every single human deserves to be saved, Sersi? Every murderer, every rapist?”

  “You think you’re qualified to judge everyone in the world?” Kingo asked. “You’re not a god, Druig.”

  “So you keep telling me. As I said, it was just a thought—we have plenty of time to work out the details. Phastos could come up with some other solution. At the very least, we could send a signal to Arishem once we’ve evacuated the planet, let him come and deal with Tiamut.”

  “Druig.” Phastos dismissed his hologram, stopping what he’d been doing to interrupt them. There was something about the tone in his voice, and when Kingo glanced in his direction, the man’s expression gave him pause.

  “What is it?” Druig asked.

  “Thena’s gone,” Phastos said quietly. “There’re still some trace energy readings, but not… enough.”

  Kingo’s stomach dropped like a stone. Across from him, Sersi’s face fell. “You’re sure? They’re not just hiding?” she asked.

  Phastos shook his head. “Gilgamesh is at Kamar-taj with the Avengers. If Thena’s alive, she’s not on Earth or in a neighbouring dimensional space.”

  “She’s dead, then?” Kingo heard himself ask, though it felt like the voice was someone else’s. His face had grown hot, the leaden weight inside him making it difficult to breathe.

  Phastos didn’t say anything.

  “Ikaris killed her,” Druig said, his voice sombre. “And you still think he’s right?”

  Kingo turned away abruptly, swallowing the lump in his throat as he avoided the man’s gaze. “What happens now?” he asked after a moment.

  “A top-down approach, to start things off. I’ll take over the world’s leadership and start issuing directives, lay some groundwork and get teams to start gathering information and crunching the data around logistics. Phastos has some ideas about where to get things started,” Druig responded. He let out a deep sigh. Out of the corner of Kingo’s eye, he could see the Prime Eternal look back toward the window and the planet visible beyond it. “In the meantime, Wanda Maximoff has somehow extended her protections against me even further—I can’t touch anyone in Kamar-taj. Gilgamesh is there. The Avengers, too. They’re wild cards. I’m going to have to talk to them.”

  “You think they’ll be on board with your plan?” Kingo let out a derisive huff. “That they’ll, what, just sit back and let you take over the planet?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I’m not sure. Our goals are the same. I’m hoping the Avengers will see the sense in our plan. Like I hope you do. Like I hope Gilgamesh will. If not… well, then I suppose nothing changes there. I can’t let them stop us. There’s too much at stake.”

  Kingo didn’t respond.

  “Are you with us?” Druig prompted him.

  When Kingo continued to hesitate, Sersi reached over and gently touched his shoulder. “Stay. Please? It’s better if we’re together. We need you.”

  It was too much. This wasn’t the sort of thing he thought he’d ever have to deal with—decisions that would not only impact all of humanity, but ones with cosmic implications. His immediate instinct was to disengage. To just… leave. He couldn’t help them stop the Emergence. But their plan wasn’t finished. They hadn’t fully decided what to do about Tiamut, and the life of a Celestial still potentially hung in the balance. Did he trust that enough of them would advocate in Tiamut’s favour when it came time to make a decision?

  Thena was dead. Ajak and Ikaris had been imprisoned, and Thena was dead.

  “I don’t know,” he said, the words feeling bitter and hollow in his mouth. “This isn’t… I need to think about all of this.”

  Druig shrugged. “Take all the time you need.”

  --

  I stepped back out into the cool night air, a tight feeling of trepidation lingering in my chest. Red magic flickered in my palms and I was airborne a moment later, shooting a hundred feet above the tallest parts of the monastery in the span of a second or two before pausing to take stock, looking out toward the horizon.

  Faintly visible in the distance, the silhouettes of the Himalayas loomed like sleeping gods, black against a deeper black. Below me, Kamar-taj glowed with warm light. The rest of Kathmandu spread out beyond the monastery, the surrounding green giving way to clusters of streetlamps that traced winding arteries through a maze of rooftops, threading together temples, markets, and alleyways, murmuring with life even at this hour.

  I let out a soft sigh.

  Was I being stupid or paranoid, putting too much thought into what the Ancient One had said? It was hard to say. I felt like I’d been making good progress with her—we weren’t friends, obviously, but I was pretty sure I’d proven to her that my intentions were good and that I was, at the very least, quite useful to have around. She seemed a lot more comfortable around me these days. Still, what she’d said had set off alarm bells in my head, and a small part of me was worried that she was trying to game things in such a way that she could get rid of me and the Eternals in one go. Two birds, one stone.

  Even if that were the case, though—which I had no real proof of outside random worries—there wasn’t much I’d be able to do about it. The Ancient One had seemingly gotten a handle on the possibilities of the new timeline, now, so it was vanishingly unlikely that she’d have said anything like that to me if it meant that I’d act in a way she wasn’t already planning for. I didn’t really have any other choice but to trust and hope that she was being upfront. Well, as upfront as the Ancient One ever was with anyone, at least.

  God, was this how Tony felt about me? It probably was.

  I let myself drop back down, landing lightly atop one of the monastery’s upper terraces, where it was relatively dark. A pair of large, bronze bells, each housed within its own freestanding little structure, flanked the outer edges of the wide space. The tiles I stood on between them formed a circular pattern, cut through with mystical symbols. Looking around, this spot tickled at my memories. I was pretty sure I remembered seeing lines of Kamar-taj’s apprentices being put through their paces here—combat training or portal formation or something.

  I wandered toward the inner edge of the terrace, where a set of steps led down toward the central courtyard, and was surprised to see someone sitting, by themselves, a handful of steps down from the top. It took me a moment to recognise her from the back of her head. Darcy. Huh. What was she doing out here?

  Okay. This was a good opportunity to distract myself. There was an attractive person that I liked, sitting all by herself. I should talk to her. Focus on that, instead of stressing about the Ancient One or my own personal failures.

  Deep breath.

  “Hey!” I called out to her, lightly bouncing down the first few stairs.

  Darcy flinched and let out a small, strangled yelp of surprise, almost fumbling what I could now see was a spoon and small bowl she’d been eating something out of. “Jesus Christ,” she said, looking wildly up at me with accusing eyes.

  “No, actually. It’s Wanda,” I said with a small grin, eyes twinkling as I took a step past her. The staircase was wide enough that we could’ve sat side-by-side with enough of a gap between us that it wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but I chose to sit on the step just below hers, body turned so I could lean back against the lacquered wooden balustrade. I tipped my head toward the bowl in her hands—whatever she’d been eating, she was almost done. “What’ve you got?”

  Darcy looked down at it, lips pursed for a moment in consideration. “It’s like a rice and eggs thing with spices and chutney? S’pretty good. I missed breakfast and the sorcerers were super nice about it, but then I got turned around on the way back. Didn’t want it to get cold.”

  “Nice. I’m actually a little surprised that you’re here at all. I thought the Avengers had cleared all the nonessential personnel out of the compound yesterday.”

  “Nonessential?” she asked, feigning offence. “Ouch.”

  I snorted. “You know what I mean. You’ve been at the compound for, what, a week?”

  “I wanted to help.” She gave a slight shrug, scraping out one last spoonful of her breakfast before continuing to talk even with her mouth half-full. “‘Oh, no! Ancient alien space gods are attacking!’ Pfft, that’s like a Tuesday for me.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair enough, I suppose.” It was a little bit of an exaggeration, but I got her point.

  She swallowed and her tone softened slightly. “Sorry about your friend, by the way.”

  “I probably wouldn’t say she was my friend. But thanks.” Movement caught the corner of my eye. I glanced down at the courtyard, watching a pair of red-robed sorcerers move purposefully from one end to the other before vanishing out of sight again.

  Darcy placed her empty bowl down on the step next to her, then leaned back on her elbows. “You’re rocking the new do,” she said, trying and unknowingly failing to move the topic onto something a bit lighter. “I mean, it looked good long, but this works, too.”

  I touched my hair self-consciously, exhaling softly through my nose. “Oh, you think? Pietro said the same. I kinda hate it. Thena did it to me. It… wasn’t really consensual.”

  “Ah. Sorry.” She made a face. “I didn’t realise. I heard she kinda kicked the crap out of you, too?”

  “Yep. Beat me ‘til my bruises had bruises. Plus side, she helped me get a better handle on my magic. Oh! And…”

  I shrugged Bucky’s jacket off, laying it down next to me on the steps before standing back up and considering the lighting for a moment. Tucking my thumbs into my pants, I pulled them down a smidge to make them rest lower on my hips, tensed my stomach and struck a little bit of a pose, twisting my body slightly so that the lamplight filtering up from the courtyard would catch and highlight my arms and abdominals. I was pretty sure I remembered Darcy being rather interested in shirtless beefcake Thor—if she really did swing both ways, it was hopefully a safe bet that she had similar interests when it came to women.

  “Goddamn,” she murmured.

  Well, that reaction was a good sign, at least. “I know, right? I was not ripped like this, like, a week ago.”

  “Mmmph.” After a moment, she managed to tear her eyes away, looking up to see me watching her with a pleased expression on my face. Her cheeks coloured slightly and she hurriedly looked away again. “I, uh, yeah. I really like your, uh, pants, too, by the way. They’re nice.”

  “Thanks! You can, uh, keep checking me out if you want. I absolutely do not mind.”

  Darcy let out a small laugh. “Your girlfriend warned me about you, you know,” she told me.

  I froze, a suddenly nervous smile on my face. “Uh, what do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean, she didn’t in so many words. I read between the lines a little bit.” Darcy grinned, eyes flashing darkly in amusement. “Come on, then. You’ve got one shot. Give me your best line.”

  Being put on the spot like this was making me feel super awkward. “I don’t really have lines,” I said uncertainly. “I think I kinda just annoy people into liking me? It’s mostly just dad jokes, inappropriate comments, and occasional dark revelations of the future.”

  “Dark…? Oh! Right, the pool. I forgot about that.”

  “The pool…?” I frowned, confused for a brief moment before it clicked. “Oh, goddamn it! Don’t tell me they’re still doing that stupid ‘who will Wanda traumatise next’ betting pool thing?”

  “Dr Banner told me—” she straightened slightly, doing what I assumed was a not-very-recognisable impression of Bruce. “—‘If Wanda corners you and says she has something really important to tell you, get out of there. Just leave as quickly as possible. Maybe stick your fingers in your ears.’”

  “Ugh, that’s so unfair. I barely traumatised him at all.”

  Darcy gestured toward herself with one hand. “Go on, then, lay it on me. I’m not afraid. If I am traumatised by spooky secret knowledge of my innermost struggles, Mr Stark does win like fifty bucks, but I dunno. I’m feeling pretty confident about rolling those dice.”

  “Actually…” I hesitated. I didn’t really have anything to tell Darcy, did I? She didn’t really have that many on-screen personal struggles, and everything I really knew about that was going to happen with her had either already happened or had been butterflied away by my actions. “You seem kinda weirdly self-actualised, as far as I can tell.”

  She squinted at me. “Uh, thanks? I think.”

  Movement in the courtyard below caught my attention again, but this time I turned and stared. The tall, green-furred minotaur from earlier was down there now, speaking with two other blue-robed sorcerers—one was the Asian woman who’d also been part of the Ancient One’s rescue party, but I didn’t think I recognised the other, a dark-skinned man with a half-shaved head.

  I glanced briefly back at Darcy, tipping my head in the sorcerers’ direction. “Minotaur,” I said simply.

  “Oh yeah, I saw him around before. Weird, right?”

  I nodded quietly, eyes still glued to the courtyard.

  “Is he like… the minotaur? From Greek mythology? What’s he doing here? Why’s he green?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. I knew he existed, but I don’t actually know anything about him,” I said, absently chewing at my bottom lip as I continued to stare at the non-human sorcerer.

  I didn’t mind it when other people labelled me as bisexual, but that was a pretty limited, tame interpretation of my interests, and I was pretty sure the minotaur sorcerer passed the Harkness Test. He was pretty tall and a little bulkier than a human, though it wasn’t clear from here how much of that was actually fur. It looked pretty thick and luxurious—he could actually be pretty lean underneath it. I wondered what it would feel like… would it be like having sex on a shag rug? Could you hold onto his horns, or would that be awkward or painful for him? His legs were digitigrade and he had hooves! What would that be like? Also, while I’d been curious about what the Hulk was packing downstairs, that was more of a question of size and novelty vis-à-vis colouration. A minotaur, though? I wasn’t even sure what shape it would be. Would it be like a human one, or…?

  Darcy let out a small snort of amusement. “Natasha was right, you really don’t know how to turn it off, do you?”

  “What?”

  She gave me a very pointed ‘you know exactly what I mean’ sort of look—an exaggeratedly sceptical raised eyebrow, a brief look back down at the sorcerers, then back to me.

  I laughed and shrugged it off. “Sue me. It’s not a crime to be curious about… things.”

  “‘Things’. Sure.”

  “He’s an intelligent being capable of consent,” I said, flicking a hand dismissively. “He’s even mostly human-shaped! Believe me, it’d be far from my worst ‘hear me out’. You’re not even a little bit curious?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Darcy said, shaking her head. “I am a scientist, you know.” She let out a small sigh, picking her empty bowl back up with one hand while she used the other to grab hold of the balustrade and pull herself back to her feet. “Although speaking of, I should probably head back in, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  I nodded, standing up at the same time she did. “If you see Nat or Carol, can you let them know I’ll drop around in a little bit to see how things are going?”

  “Sure,” she said, then paused and stared at me, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You’re gonna go talk to the minotaur, aren’t you?”

  “I like meeting new people! He might be nice!” I said innocently.

  “Uh huh. Well, have fun with that. Not too much fun, though.”

  I glanced back down at the courtyard for a brief moment. “It’d be like… like… falling through a tree into custard. ‘Too high!’ Wham! ‘Too fast!’ Wham! ‘Leaves!’ Wham! Splat!”

  Darcy was looking at me with a mixture of horrified fascination and curiosity. “…Leaves?” she asked, then held up a hand to cut me off before I could respond. “Wait! No. Forget I asked. I probably shouldn’t have that mental image in my head for the rest of today. Tonight.”

  “When you say ‘mental image’, is that a mental image of just him, or me and him, or are you also—”

  “Ah! No! Enough!” Both of her hands were up, warding me off like she was raising an invisible barrier, as she turned on her heel and scurried off up the steps. She paused briefly at the top, looking back at me. I grinned at her. She shook her head, a small smile tugging at her lips despite herself, then turned and left.

  Once she was out of sight, I returned my attention to the courtyard. Whatever business the sorcerers had been conducting had concluded and, with a small bow, the group dispersed, the minotaur starting to head toward the far end of the area, opposite the library.

  Quickly scooping Bucky’s jacket back up in one hand, I pushed off and flew down the stairs with a brief flex of magical power, getting down as quickly as I could. Landing lightly on the cobbled stones of the courtyard, I jogged toward my target, intending on catching him before he could reach his own destination. The minotaur noticed my approach and paused, turning to face me as I made my way over to him.

  “Hi!” I said brightly. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. Wanda Maximoff, prophesised Scarlet Witch. Master…?”

  “Rintrah,” he said, bowing his head politely in acknowledgement. His voice wasn’t nearly as deep as I’d been expecting it to be—I’d assumed he’d have a really deep, gravelly baritone, but he just kind of… sounded like a regular guy? Huh. “Is there something I can do for you, Ms Maximoff?”

  “Yeah, uh, so, sorry to bother you, but… you’re a minotaur.”

  Rintrah studied me carefully for a brief moment, then lifted his hands and looked down at them. They were big, the fur on them thinning out to reveal yellowish skin on his palms. Though he only had four fingers instead of five, each was thicker than three of mine, and they were tipped with relatively normal-looking, human-like fingernails. He looked back up at me, his cow-like eyes wide.

  “By the Moons of Munnopor!” he said, his voice low and filled with exaggerated awe. “You’re right!”

  Short version: I'm going to be dropping down to posting one chapter a fortnight for a little while, so the next update will be out on 27 Nov 25.

  Longer version: I've been updating this story almost continuously for 18 full months now (and for a decent chunk of it I was posting two chapters per week, even). However, lately I've been struggling a little to keep up with my posting schedule, and this last month in particular I've had real difficulty getting words down, which has meant I've finally completely exhausted the small backlog I'd been maintaining.

  I've been thinking about it and I think it'd probably be beneficial for me to ease up a little bit and switch to posting updates once every two weeks, for a little while at least, just to ease up on the pressure a bit. With any luck, I'll get over the slump sometime soon and might even be able to re-build some of my backlog.

  The problems I've been having aren't anything to do with the story itself, just personal issues -- I've had ongoing issues with anxiety and depression basically my entire life and those are at a bit of a peak right now, work has been especially busy and stressful, my cat's ongoing health issues are still there and I might only have a few more months with him before his quality of life deteriorates too much to be tenable, and I injured my foot a month ago and haven't been able to walk without at least some pain since then. Just not having a great time of it lately and it's making everything hard, not just writing.

  My only real stress about this is that posting and getting comments from everyone has become a thing I really look forward to every week, during a time in my life when I don't really have that much else to look forward to, so I'm probably going to be a bit sad about missing out on the back and forth with everyone every second week ?? Ah well, gotta do what I gotta do.